Published Release Notes

Streamlined Form Configuration dialog

The Form Configuration dialog presents an easy to use interface for managing fields in user forms. New features and capabilities include the following:

• You can create a field by entering its short description, field type, and attributes without having to open a property form.
• The list of available field types has been simplified and organized into two groups: Single Value and Complex Types (page and page list).
• Single value fields are configured and labeled so business users can more easily understand their purpose. For example, a currency field represents a decimal property type that is displayed in a currency control.
• When adding a calculated value, you can create a simple Declare Expression directly from the mode field. See Use the Form Configuration dialog to automatically create a Declare Expression.
• When adding a dropdown field, you can specify the list's choices directly in a pop-up dialog. The system automatically creates the property and populates the values in a Prompt List table.
  
• When adding a page or page list, the system automatically creates a new data type. Alternatively, you can reuse an existing data type by clicking the gear icon to display a Data Type dialog. If the data type selected has data pages defined on it, you can set the field to be automatically sourced at runtime. Once finished, the system will automatically select fields from the data type for you to reuse.

Wait and Create Case shapes support parameter passing

You can now pass property or parameter values to Wait and Create Case process modeler shapes, rather than use a hard-coded case type value to create a case.

Create PDF Smart Shape supports orientation

The Create PDF Smart Shape contains settings that allow you to orient the PDF in a profile or landscape layout.

Better visibility for Stages and Steps

The Stages and Steps display now appears at the top of the action area on perform and review user forms. Previously, the display appeared on the Case Contents Overview tab.

Stages and Steps may not appear as expected

There are some unique configurations of the newly enhanced pxDisplayStages gadget that can lead to case type "Stages and Steps" appearing more than once or not at all.  In the event that your application experiences one of these scenarios, the recommended work around is to relocate the gadget:

• Add pxDisplayStages to the pyCaseContainer section (or equivalent)
• Remove pxDisplayStages from the pyCaseActionArea section (or equivalent).

Improved processing of correspondence details

When you send correspondence, the system now does not update the pxSendDateTime property on the pxCorrSummary work page that belongs to pyWorkPage. In previous versions of Pega Platform™, after sending correspondence, the update of the pxSendDateTime property could cause errors when working with an application at run time. To prevent such issues, Pega Platform now includes a pyEnableCorrSummary when rule that, by default, is set to false. If your business scenario requires updating the pxCorrSummary work page, set the when rule value to true.

For more information, see:

• Notifying participants about events
• Approval by email
• Sending automatic emails from cases

Support for picklists with parameterized data pages in App Studio in Cosmos React UI

You can now use data pages with parameters to populate a property of the picklist type with filtered results in App Studio. For example, in a survey case type, you can use a parameterized data page to configure cascading drop-down controls in which the values in a secondary drop-down list are based on the value that the user selects in the primary drop-down list. With dynamically-sourced picklists, you get greater flexibility in configuring picklists, and users see more accurate values.

For more information, see link Dropdown control Properties — General tab.

Questionnaires available in App Studio

App Studio now supports authoring questionnaires, which in previous releases of Pega Platform™ were known as surveys. You can create questionnaires, add question pages, and populate the pages with questions of different types so that you can collect the exact data that your business processes require. For more efficient data management and reuse, data objects from a data model now store answers to questions, instead of autogenerated properties. For example, when a customer provides a date of birth in a questionnaire, and your application stores the date as a data object, you can conveniently reuse that data object in related cases. For greater flexibility, both standard Pega Platform and Cosmos React applications support questionnaires, however, some question types are unavailable in Cosmos React.

For more information, see:

• Create questionnaires in a low-code way in App Studio (8.6)
• Creating a questionnaire

Remote case types in App Studio

App Studio now supports remote case types for applications that you build on Cosmos React. With remote case types, you can create a case type inside one application, and then work on cases based on this case type in another, remote application. As a result, users can perform work from multiple applications on one screen without the need to switch between applications, which results in increased efficiency and faster case resolution.

For more information, see:

• Increase efficiency by sharing remote case types between applications (8.6)
• Remote case types  

Support for calling a data transform from a case life cycle in App Studio and initializing data at case creation

You can now call a data transform from a case life cycle in a low-code way in App Studio. For example, when a customer wants to order the same product again, your application can reuse the shipping information from their previous order. Additionally, by configuring data initialization for a case type, you can prepopulate fields at case creation. For example, an application for a delivery service can apply the customer's preferred delivery options when a new case starts. These enhancements save time for developers because the system can initialize data and prepopulate fields in a case by reusing existing logic, and for customers, who do not need to manually enter their details every time.

For more information, see Calling a data transform from a case and Initializing data at case creation.